Table groans as Blair whets appetite for third term

A Queen's speech normally freezes, rather randomly, the government's set of immediate priorities. Yesterday's was different. Read alongside its companion volume coming out next Thursday (the pre-budget report), the speech set out pretty well Labour's entire "third-term offer", the marketing phrase now used in preference to "election manifesto" by New Labour.

No one expects more than a quarter of the 32 bills announced yesterday to reach the statute book before the election campaign starts in April. So, yesterday, the Queen gave to the electorate Labour's "politics of fear and security", and, next week, subject to the Treasury's golden rule, the chancellor will provide "the politics of hope and opportunity".

In short, yesterday the government explained what it expected from its citizens, and next week it will say what citizens can expect from the government.

The home secretary, David Blunkett, previewed this twin-track strategy in a Guardian interview before the Labour conference. He claimed that with a tough policy on security "the government could deliver good, progressive things".

He also predicted a charge that he would be disgracefully stoking the politics of fear - duly made by the Tory chairman, Liam Fox, and by Charles Kennedy, yesterday.

Yesterday's emphasis on security was political, meant to squeeze out the Tories on the few issues where Michael Howard has an advantage, according to polls.

Labour also hopes to put the Liberal Democrats in an uncomfortable spot.

The party has already made a U-turn on anti-social behaviour orders. The leader of the house, Peter Hain, speculated that the Lib Dems would also reverse their opposition to ID cards, a measure that is backed by eight out of 10 members of the public.

But Mr Kennedy insisted yesterday that he wouldnot do so, saying that the £3bn cost of ID cards would be better spent on local policing.

The issues, from organised crime to abandoned cars, have come to Labour from its Big Conversation, the discussions with the electorate over the past year.

Yesterday Tories said they were relaxed about Labour's battleground, arguing that the public thought crime was an issue on which Labour's record was weak and "all talk". Mr Kennedy, meanwhile, said the prime minister was conflating, in the public mind, terrorism with domestic crime.

But Labour interest groups could all find something to cheer - in the shake-up of the railways; the extension of child benefit to teenagers in work-based learning; the three-year budgets for education authorities; a consumer credit bill; a single equality commission and the outlawing of religious discrimination. Even the stalled draft corporate manslaughter bill was welcomed by the unions.

Yet none of these measures will receive much attention today. For a party determined to fight on the economy and domestic issues, that may prove to be an error.